French scholar and author, born at Ambert, Puy-de-Dôme, on the 15th of December 1859. He was educated at the lycées of Puy and Rodez, and afterwards studied at Clermont and in the École des Hautes Études at Paris. He entered the Bibliothèque Nationale in 1885, became professor of philology at the École des Hautes Études in 1886, and was in 1892 made curator of the palace of Versailles, becoming hon. curator on resigning this post in 1921. He produced a series of works dealing with its history and associations, of which the chief are Le Musée National de Versailles (with A. Pératé, 1896); Le Château de Versailles sous Louis XV. (1898); Les Jardins de Versailles (1905); Histoire du Château de Versailles (1911); Le Trianon de Marie Antoinette (1914) and Madame de Pompadour et des Arts (1920). His other works, which deal with a great variety of subjects, include Le Dernier Amour de Ronsard (1882); Lettres de Joachim du Bellay (1883); Erasme en Italie (1888); Petrarque et l’Humanisme (1892; new edition 1907); besides several volumes of poems, and works on Nattier, Fragonard, Hubert Robert, Boucher, and Madame Vigée-Le Brun. He was made an officer of the Legion of Honour.
See P. Bouchaud, Pierre de Nolhac et ses travaux (1896).
